Sledding

Sapphie loves her little sled and since we haven't gotten much new snow, the golf course is perfect for sledding. It's all packed down and Kevin can pull her forever! Here we are after a long walk and a few little hills.

Yoga with Daddy

Kevin started taking Sapphie to yoga on Friday mornings. It's great bonding time for them and they both have such a blast. Here are a few pictures that my co-worker took. His daughter Jill is in the same class, and she and Sapphie will be going to pre-school together in the fall!

Sapphie's in the gray and black dress with the knee high socks (yes, she dressed herself).

Sapphie Turns 2!

I'm sure you've noticed my blogs are a little out of order, but it's all a function of how much time I have to make a post. I've been dying to put up some pictures from December and of course Sapphie's 2nd birthday! We've had such a wonderful month and it's really flown by.

First, we went to visit Great Grandma Ree and Great Grandpa Dick in Leeds. We had such a relaxing visit, I forgot to take any pictures so I've only got a few. We just hung out, played and talked, and of course enjoyed the new kitchen and took naps every day. Sapphie took to calling Ree "Grandma Ree", which is what we all call her, and she called Grandpa Dick just plain old "Dick". It was pretty funny. Here she is trying on my earmuffs:


Kevin was so excited to take Sapphie to Look Park, where he used to go as a little boy. It's a HUGE park and every winter they do a winter wonderland and cover the entire park with figures made of lights. Sapphie had a blast! Here we are in a sleigh...

On the bridge

And, my favorite, the hayride! No it wasn't pulled by horses, so I had gotten her all excited to see some and it turned out to be a tractor. She didn't mind though, she was so excited. The ride was about 15 minutes and took us all around the park to see the lights.

At the Gleason's, flirting with "Dick"

The next big event was Christmas, which we had in Burlington this year!! I must say we were pretty torn about our decision not to travel, but both sets of parents were so supportive that we went for it - and LOVED it!! It was so nice to have Sapphie wake up in her own bed and enjoy the tree during this special time of year. Penelope and Colin put on an amazing feast, and we partied at their house. Here's Sapphie reading the new book that Auntie Lucy and Uncle John gave her:

Opening more presents...this is the first of many!!

Figgy pudding shot. It was, as always, amazing.

Hannah and Richard.

And, the next day we celebrated Sapphie's birthday! It was so fun, just family (and Isaac, but we consider him family). Sapphie got a new bike from Nonna and Grandpi. She's so excited!!!

This is the cake I made for her. It's a carrot cake and came out so yummy. No coconut on the head since Nonna hates it...Sapphie's really been into snowmen lately so I was really excited to get her reaction.

She loved it!! She still asks for some snowman cake. What she doesn't know is I have an entire section in the freezer for us to eat when the baby comes home.

Another gift from Nonna - a new kitchen!! This has been a big hit.

To go with her new kitchen, Christina sent Sapphie a new apron and oven mitt. And, Papa LaLa gave her a new stool! She's been using both every day to help me cook.


And a few other random shots. Colin (Onkie as Sapphie calls him) has taught Sapphie Awkward Pose. This is not the true yoga pose, but a very awkward stance that Colin made up and we named when we were in England. Sapphie's good at it.

Reading, her favorite thing to do.

Reading to her babies

Dancing video

Sapphie loves dancing, and she's got the most terrible cheese face I've ever seen. See both in this video below.

Belly shots

Last week I had my belly cast done and Isaac came and took photos. Here's they are on his blog. This is my favorite one:

Soe said it reminds her of Goldfinger, which happens to be my favorite James Bond movie of all time. Isaac is a really good photographer. I'm going to frame this one and put it up on my wall. After BK2 comes, Isaac's coming over for a shoot so we should have lots of good photos! I'm excited.

The belly cast looked smaller to me than the one I had done with Sapphie. It will be fun to compare the two (the one I just had done is still being finished. Once it's done, I'll take a picture of the two side by side). Soe is going to paint the new one...it's going to be awesome!

Mummy notes

When I'm in my 60's, and bragging about how my daughter ALWAYS slept through the night, let this be a record that since 13 months of age, she has. I'm so in awe of it sometimes that I'm afraid I'll forget whether or not it was really true. Here are a few notes I need, as an official record of fact:

• the first 13 months were almost completely sleepless for me. Sapphie liked to nurse all night long, and the longest stretch she ever had was about 8pm to midnight, in her crib. After that she would come in the bed and most nights would nurse every hour.
• putting her on rice cereal didn't change her sleeping habits a bit (thanks to all you who advised me to put a little rice cereal in a bottle with my breast milk - I never tried it, but did find out that it wouldn't have made a difference at all!).
• When Sapphie turned 13 months old, Kevin and I had a talk with her about going to bed. As soon as we said it, she threw herself down on the couch to demonstrate sleeping. It was really cute but it also showed us that she understood what it meant to go to bed (and that she could understand what we were saying). We felt like she was ready for a new stage of independence. That night, we put her in her crib awake and told her we loved her and that it was time for bed. She cried for 5 minutes. We went back in, didn't pick her up and told her we loved her and that it was time for bed. She cried for 10 minutes. We went back in again, told her we loved her and that she needed to go to sleep. She cried for 30 seconds and went to sleep. That first night, she was up every few hours and we did the same thing - told her we loved her and to go to bed. Since that night, she has regularly slept 12 hours or more every night - uninterrupted.
  
• During the last few months, she has been regularly sleeping from 7pm until about 9am (and sometimes 10!). She also naps 2 to 3 hours a day.
• We have found that when she's overtired, she sleeps less, wakes up earlier in the morning, and doesn't nap as well.

A few weeks ago, she started a new habit (actually I didn't realize what was going on until a few days ago). She would wake up about once a night crying for me and I would go to her (we don't really let her cry because she usually needs something). She would point to the rocker and say "sing a song in the chair". It was so cute that I obliged happily. During the last week before Christmas she was doing it twice a night! I realized what was going on and on Sunday, as I was putting her to bed, I said "I need to talk to you about something." She said "yeah." I said "you know, you've been waking up at night and asking me to sing a song in the chair." She said "yeah."
"Well I don't want you to do that anymore. Mummy is sleeping when you do that and I need my rest too. If you wake up, I want you to snuggle with your lamby and go back to sleep." She said "okay."
And she hasn't done it since! It's so cool that I can communicate with her! How fun. I can't believe in a few weeks I'll be back to being up all night with number 2!

I'm sure that this was pretty boring for you, but since my blog serves as my journal I must sometimes do a factual entry for my records. More to come! I've already got some notes going on how my two pregnancies have been different...xo

Snow fun

Sapphie and I had some fun playing in the snow today. We took the dogs for a long walk at the golf course, and then of course she wanted to go over to the sledding hill to watch the kids. As we got close, she said she wanted to walk (yes, I brought her boots this time. And, thanks to Auntie Lucy for getting her a fleece with hand mitts!! We now have no mitten drama and have very warm hands). So I let her out of the backpack, and she walked. Then she decided to throw herself down and play with the dogs in the snow. Here she is saying cheese and trying to avoid a stick in the face (Cabot was dancing around her with a huge stick).

Here she was yelling "swimming!". She was trying to copy Cooper, who likes to "swim" and rub his entire face and body in the snow.

Watching the sledders. We did that for about half an hour.

Cheese!!!!